Curtained Off

A Submission to the Inanimate Objects Writing Contest by Top in Fiction & Killer Shorts

Photo by Pascal Debrunner on Unsplash

Katie thought basements were creepy. The ones she knew were cold, cement crypts with dark, shadowy corners and spiderwebs galore. Sometimes she played in her own basement, but it was never long before an odd sound or sudden goosebumps would have her running up the stairs as fast as her 7-year-old legs could take her.

Grandmother and Grandaddy’s basement was different. The secrets it held were good ones.

It was a finished basement, a rarity and a treat. The furnishings, an orange velveteen sofa and loveseat, were from her father’s childhood. There was even a small kitchenette filled with her great-grandparents’ castaway cups, dishes, and cutlery. It was the perfect setting for Katie to host gala-sized tea parties or run an imaginary restaurant scaled to a size that felt far more real than her own toy kitchen could offer.

Her grandparents’ basement stairs didn’t descend into shadows and cement, but rather the swish-swish of socks through orange and yellow shag carpet. The wood-paneled walls and earth-toned textures were like a warm cave for Katie’s imagination to play in, and Katie loved to play.

The promise of playing restaurant called Katie down the stairs that day, but her thoughts were also on the basement’s other source of wonder; the curtained room.

Near the foot of the stairs, the shag carpet ended at a threshold guarded not with a door, but by a black strip of curtain hung across its middle, obscuring most of one’s view of the dark room beyond it.

The curtain was made of thick black cloth that, despite its scratchy texture, almost seemed to shine. It hung so perfectly positioned to Katie’s height that no matter where in the basement she stood, it blocked all but the smallest hints of the storage room’s mysteries, like a black bath towel keeping the room’s modesty intact.

Katie could play alone in the basement on one condition: the curtained room was off-limits.

Grandmother’s instructions were soft, almost dismissive.

“Don’t you go in there, now, and don’t you be messing with that curtain. Leave it closed.”

Grandaddy’s reminders were sterner.

“Stay outta there, Katie. There ain’t nothing in there for you.”

Their warnings reminded Katie of The Wizard of Oz.

“Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.”

As if she could ignore this portal to the unseen amusements that lay waiting on the other side.

Katie had been behind the curtain before, chaperoned, of course, and she knew what lay beyond it. On those rare occasions when her grandparents needed something from that room, she’d beg to come along and sneak a peek, and if she was lucky, a poke beneath the shrouds the space behind the curtain contained.

Unlike the rest of the basement, the room was unfinished. The floor and windowless walls were bare concrete. A single bulb and dangling chain lit its contents: a dozen metal shelves that lined the walls and curled through the room like a maze. They were spartan metal scaffolds, and each shelf was covered with thick drop cloths or black plastic bags hiding an eclectic set of treasures.

One thing hidden here was her Grandmother’s vintage Christmas decorations. These weren’t your usual balls and baubles, but whole displays with glittery elves and a golden wire sleigh the size of Katie’s arm. She wasn’t allowed to play with them when they made their annual appearance, but she sure loved to lift the cloth covers and sneak a touch when her curtained-room chaperone wasn’t looking.

Under another cloth, she’d found her father’s childhood train set, its yards of tracks and a toy village lying buried beneath a dusty drop cloth like a skeleton of steel and styrofoam. Why her father’s former toy was tucked in here and deemed untouchable, Katie couldn’t understand.

A dartboard dangled from one of the shelves. A real one with sharp, poky tips that sank into the cork with a satisfying thunk. None of that Nerf stuff!

These were just three discoveries unearthed behind the black curtain. What might the other draped shelves hold?

When her grandparents were downstairs with her, Katie liked to tease them by moving the curtain just an inch. The curtain sounded like a cross between a rain stick and a rattlesnake. The clattering clickity-clickity-click perked her ears like a promise of something secret to be discovered.

The curtain’s clicks and rattles carried up the stairs, making it nearly sneak-proof, but Katie didn’t mind. The swift swishhhhh-rattle or the slower clickity-clickity-click of the curtain were both distinctive and pleasing. She’d love to slide that curtain back and forth for a bit, but no.

“I said stay outta there. There’s nothing for you in there.”

Oh, but she begged to differ.

Katie wrote her menu and chose a serving tray, glancing now and then towards the stairs. Each time, the curtained doorway beckoned, enticing her with a shadowed glimpse above its scratchy, opaque edges.

Mom said they probably hide our Christmas presents in there, and that’s why I can’t go in.

Katie once found a Christmas present hidden in a closet, and was riddled with guilt for a whole two weeks before finally confessing to her bemused mother. She really tried to be good, but she was also smart and slightly rebellious.

I know where the train is. What if I just uncovered that and nothing else? I don’t even have to touch it. I could just look at it. They didn’t even let me see all of the village last time.

Katie “cooked” in the kitchen and brought plates to her “customers” on the couches. Each creak-creak of her Grandmother’s steps overhead drew her eyes to the curtain. She felt a twinge of guilt for wanting to pull it aside, even as her curiosity remained.

Business in Katie’s imaginary restaurant was roaring. She’d even found coasters for her guests’ drinks (in real glass glasses!) in the drawers beneath the side tables.

“Yes, Madam. We have a new menu with many specials tonight.”

Flumppphhhhh.

A muffled sound of heavy cloth hitting the floor halted her service.

“Grandmama?”

There was no answer, and Katie hadn’t heard her grandmother’s feet on the stairs.

What was that? That was definitely down here.

After a cursory check that the window curtains were intact, Katie’s eyes turned again towards the stairs, then the nearby black curtain, still hanging undisturbed in its place.

That sound had to be from the curtained room.

Something fell in there for sure. I think one of the drop cloths came off. But how? Why?

Her confusion turned to mild alarm.

If Grandmother or Grandaddy see a cloth or something on the floor, they’ll think it was me! I didn’t go in there! I know I wanted to, but I didn’t!

Katie stared at the black curtain, unwavering in its duty to conceal.

She felt a wave of irritation at this unexpected dilemma. The place where she wanted to go, but really shouldn’t, had now put her in a bind. If she put the drop cloth back, she wouldn’t get blamed, but what if she got caught in there?

That curtain is so loud. If Grandmother hears me go in there, she won’t let me play down here by myself anymore. She’ll tell Mom and Dad I disobeyed, and I’ll get in trouble.

From this side of the curtain, she couldn’t see which cloth had fallen. Half of the shelves were too high for her to reach without a chair. Even if she crawled under the curtain, Grandmother was sure to hear her if she started dragging furniture around.

Shush-Shush.

The new sound crossed the curtain.

Shush-shush. Shush-shush.

Katie’s stomach dropped like a stone. Her body recognized that sound before her brain, and her blood froze in her veins.

Shush-shush was leather on cement—shoes were shuffling around that cramped maze of shelves.

There’s no one down here but me.

“Grandmama?”

This time it was barely a whisper.

A sudden creak of footsteps broke the ice in her arms and legs, but took the last of her voice. Even worse, her grandmother was nowhere near the top of the stairs, which suddenly felt miles away.

Enabled by adrenaline, her hand flew out and flicked on the hallway light.

The black curtain hovered, a censor bar across a lowlit screen of secrets. Tendrils of light just touched the tops of the shelves, which peeked over the curtain like shadowy spikes.

shush-shush shush-shush shush-shush

The shuffling quickened. The curtain stood between Katie, the stairs to safety, and that thing she couldn’t bear to see, hear, or even acknowledge.

Katie’s shoulders hunched, her body braced and her arms curled around herself, her body a hardening ball beside the softness of the sofa. Her face, eyelids, and fists clenched as she tried to stop her mind from showing her who or what was moving around that maze of shelves. The images were so fast and so terrible that she felt herself disappearing into the darkness of her own imagination.

shush-shush-shush-shush-shush-shush-shush

The shuffling swiftened then ceased. Katie, her eyes still closed, knew the shuffling had stopped at the black curtain.

GRANDMAMAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!

But her scream was silent. Her voice was frozen as were her feet. She wanted to run for the stairs, but to reach them, she’d have to pass the curtained door, and she couldn’t seem to move.

Clink

The unmistakable sound of a lightbulb chain. Only one room in the basement had one.

Katie’s fear waged a brief and fleeting war of wills with her eyelids. They snapped open to see the shag carpet beneath her frozen feet. She raised her chin slowly and saw the shadow first.

The curtain cast its silhouette on the floor at the foot of the stairs, a stark strip of blackness across the warmth of orange and yellow. But there was something more…a shape that didn’t belong.

Katie’s eyes travelled, slowly but surely, from the carpet to the curtain.

There at its top, backlit by the blazing bulb, was a hat.

It wasn’t a cap like her Grandaddy wore when he was painting. It was an older kind of hat, black, tall, with a wide brim like the ones her Papa sometimes wore to church.

But this wasn’t Papa’s house, and Papa wasn’t here.

“Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.”

Silent wet ribbons ran down Katie’s cheeks and dropped onto her crossed arms.

The hat was unmoving. The curtain hung below its brim, obscuring its face like a blindfold.

Katie couldn’t move. Couldn’t think. She was a racing heartbeat, a bolt of electricity trapped in a body. A pair of eyes frozen on the black curtain and the horror behind it.

Click. Clickity…….Click.

No. Please, no.

Katie begged the curtain to keep its secrets, to barricade, to stay closed against….

Swisshhhhhhhhhh.